NASA's space shuttle Endeavour is ready for a pre-dawn launch this Sunday, carrying a new room and seven-window observation dome to the International Space Station.
Officials at Kennedy Space Center said liftoff is go for 4:39 AM EST (9:39 AM GMT, 1:39 AM PST), with an 80 per cent chance of good weather.
"The team is energized …

Next month, IBM will demonstrate new business software designed to track how information flows across different systems and squeal when it spots potential flaws or alterations.
Based on its own research along with technology from the $225m acquisition of Guardium in 2009, IBM's InfoSphere Business Information Monitor will be …

Another of Sun Microsystem's almost-practical projects for Java has been shuttered now that Oracle holds the purse strings. Project Darkstar, an open-source application server catered specifically for massively multiplayer online games, will no longer receive Snoracle funding.
The news was announced yesterday with a post to the …

Cisco System's quarterly profit surged 23 per cent as renewed interest in corporate infrastructure upgrades saw the network giant post its first sales increase in a year.
Chief executive John Chambers heralded the financial results as a "clear indication" that we're entering "the second phase of the economic recovery."
In …

IBM said today that it plans to acquire Initiate Systems, one of the few master data management (MDM) vendors that hadn't yet been gobbled down by a software megafirm.
Chicago-based Initiate specializes in MDM software for healthcare and government organizations. Big Blue's purchase arrives on the heels of MDM rival Informatica …

Salesforce.com is sinking its talons deeper into business applications with tools to build business rules in its Force.com platform.
The company on Wednesday is expected to roll out the Force.com Visual Process Manager, which boasts a software-free serving of graphical process design. Salesforce joins giants like IBM, Oracle, …

With Apple's latest cultware setting the world aflame over tablet PCs, it's easy to overlook another $500 couch potato media pad that made a rather spottier debut months earlier.
Fusion Garage is supposedly getting set to release its JooJoo internet pad soon. But first, it's aiming to quash a lawsuit filed by the device's former …

Cisco is rumored to be cooking up a new carrier core router to outpace Juniper's speedy T1600. But it seems that issues with the supporting application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design may delay the Cisco's telco router rollout by up to a year.
The new MSC120 Cisco router will become heir to network giant's Carrier …

Updated
Microsoft will soon put the screws on those still running last year's free preview of Windows 7 by incessantly shutting down their PC.
Starting on February 15, Windows 7 Release Candidate will begin displaying a friendly notice every few hours to either get paying or get bent. Come March 1, the PC will begin a regimen of …

Mr. and Mrs. Boring will get a third chance to fight Google over the snapping photos of their secluded home from a Street View spymobile.
Last week, a federal appeals court partially revived the now-famous Pennsylvania couple's privacy lawsuit against Google. But the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling said that Aaron and …

President Barack Obama is calling on NASA to cancel its plans to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 and instead focus on developing "building blocks" for future deep space exploration as well as partnerships with private industry.
The canned lunar program, called Constellation, "was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking …

You have to leave it to IBM and Microsoft. The two won't let a small thing like a shrinking market douse the fire of a heated rivalry over business collaboration wares.
The business collaboration market is hot right now. Red hot! Well, hypothetically red hot. But that's reason enough for these software giants to make some very …

ROTM
A woman is suing Chicago's regional rail system for injuries sustained when a toilet she used "exploded" underneath her.
Artist's (tasteful) interpretation of an exploding toilet.
In a complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois, Julianna Mandernach accuses the Chicago Metra line of negligently allowing public …

CA has tapped another IBM veteran as its next chief executive officer, replacing its turn-around champion John Swainson, who retired from the IT management omnicorp's helm at the close of 2009.
The company's new CEO, William McCracken, has served as executive chairman since Swainson's retirement plans were announced in September …

Juniper Networks saw a slight drop in fourth-quarter profit, but the network kit maker unexpectedly topped its own estimates for revenue thanks to renewed spending from corporate customers and US phone carriers.
The world's second-largest network kit maker is also optimistic for a rebound from 2009, which saw profits for most …

Larry Ellison clearly has a soft spot in his wallet for struggling San Francisco Bay institutions.
On Wednesday, Oracle's chief executive finally confirmed long-standing rumors that he's trying to buy the Golden State Warriors, the Oakland, California-based professional basketball franchise. The question is whether the team's …

Google's social network stalking aid has graduated from the company's experimental Labs site to prime-time on Google.com.
In the next few days, with its Social Search tool, Google will let English-language users scour for publicly-available content produced by friends and online contacts .
To use social search, users need to …

Japan's million-dollar biometric immigration screening systems are still no match for a little ingenuity - and some tape.
Two South Korean women have been arrested on suspicion of bypassing a cutting-edge fingerprint reading machine and illegally entering Japan by using special tape bearing the fingerprints other people.
The …

Ever dream of coming up with the word's next billion-dollar idea – then handing it over to Cisco for a chance to win a 0.025 per cent cut of that billion? Well, now's your next big chance, you silly goose!
The network giant has launched its second-ever “I-Prize" contest to tap great business and technology ideas from you, the “ …

eBay is making more changes to its already profoundly confusing US pricing structure as a way to attract high volume sellers and appease those who auction only a few low-priced items.
The online tat house charges sellers twice per successful auction. There's an “insertion fee" to list an item on the website and a “final value …

Lovable, huggable ex-monopolist Bill Gates has more often than not found himself batting for China in a recent publicity drive as head of the Gates Foundation.
On his way to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, the Microsoft-chief-turned philanthropist appears unmoved over China's position on internet censorship after Google …

Cisco is hoping to expand its reach in video conferencing by giving away a telepresence protocol that allows Cisco kit to communicate with systems from other vendors.
The network giant also give a peek at its upcoming consumer telepresence products and announced it's rolling out two new high-end video conferencing endpoints …

Spirit's days of wandering the Martian landscape are over, as NASA resigns itself to leaving the bogged-down rover in place to survive the Red Planet's winter.
The space agency said Tuesday that it's ending efforts to extricate the robot from the loose soil where it's been trapped since April. Spirit will instead continue to …

With the European Union finally giving approval to Oracle's $7.4bn acquisition of Sun Microsystems last week, IBM is stepping up efforts to exploit any untapped feelings of uncertainty in shops using Sun iron.
On Tuesday, IBM announced the addition of new software to its four-year-old “Migration Factory” vendor poaching program …

Another Lotusphere is behind us, with news for IBM's business hivemind and collaboration software aplenty. But why does Big Blue host its shindig way over in Orlando, Florida, when it's easier to peek at Google's portfolio on the other coast?
Lotusphere 2010 was a bit unusual in that it didn't completely revolve around the next …

Still-existing web outfit AOL has spent $36.5 million to acquire StudioNow, a Nashville-based startup that builds online video platforms for other companies.
AOL intends to work StudioNow's mojo into Seed.com, the company's media clearinghouse launched last year shortly after the 26-year-old internet company was spun-off from …

Motorola is hoping to convince US trade regulators to ban the sale and import of certain BlackBerry phones, which it claims infringe on several patents.
The handset maker said Friday it has filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC), asking for an investigation into RIM's alleged unlicensed use of five " …

Juniper Networks and Polycom have formed an alliance to sell enterprise telepresence and video conferencing services through third-party providers, in an apparent effort to counter Cisco's recent acquisition of video-conferencing gear maker Tandberg.
Juniper and Polycom are already rivals to Cisco in their respective fields, and …

The past decade was the warmest ever on record, showing that global warming is "continuing unabated," according to a new report from NASA.
New surface temperature figures released by the US space agency on Thursday show average global temperatures have increased by 0.2°C (0.36°F) per decade throughout the past three decades. …

One of the world’s top music trade bodies warned today that the fight against UK BitTorrent tracker OiNK won't end with the recent acquittal of its creator and administrator, Alan Ellis.
John Kennedy, chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), said the industry is considering civil …

Two of the internet's most popular video websites are planning to charge users to watch certain movies and television shows online.
YouTube and Hulu both have schemes to erect paywalls around a limited amount of content in order to drum up revenues that online advertising has failed to provide, according to recent announcements …

Virgin Media has begun trials of new packet-sniffing software designed to measure the level of illicit music-sharing over its network.
This article originally stated that Virgin Media's trial of CView has begun. This was incorrect, the system has not yet been implemented. We regret the error.
The trial will see Virgin monitor …

Cisco is a firm believer that streaming video is key to the future of business collaboration over 802.11n wireless networks. It also reckons a CEO's company-wide speech should take precedence over you showing your buddies a video where a dog rides a skateboard.
To that end, Cisco has cooked up a new set of tools for its Unified …

Two major music labels have signed partnerships with a new ad-supported music startup called FreeAllMusic.com, which lets US users download free (and legal) songs in exchange for watching video commercials.
One week after Universal Music Group inked a deal to license its music, FreeAllMusic announced that EMI is on board with …

IBM isn't forgetting about Google's mobile OS after squeezing Lotus Notes onto the iPhone and the BlackBerry.
Big Blue has said that an Android-based app for Lotus Notes is now in the works. Deadline: before Microsoft makes its own Android-based app for Exchange.
Lotus Notes Traveler Companion, IBM's first application for the …

AT&T says it has resolved a network glitch that caused some mobile customers to log into Facebook accounts belonging to complete strangers.
"In a limited number of instances, a server software connectivity error resulted in some AT&T wireless customers being logged into the wrong Facebook account when they accessed Facebook …

Chinese web regulators banned individual domain registration without a business license in early December, purportedly as part of a crackdown on internet smut and malware. But an official from China's Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) told the English-language newspaper ChinaDaily that the decision may be reversed — so …

IBM is giving its researchers a new pipeline to show off early versions of net-based Lotus collaboration tools.
As part of its annual Lotusphere conference on Monday, the company also provided a peek at what it sees as the future of the business collaboration suite, a thing called "Project Vulcan."
Taking a page from Google …

Research in Motion (RIM) is packing more support for IBM's Lotus platform into BlackBerry smartphones with a new mobile application for Lotus Quickr.
At the opening of IBM's Lotusphere conference in Orlando, Florida on Monday, RIM also unveiled a meatier version of the BlackBerry client for IBM Lotus Connections.
The new …

Amazon is expanding its Kindle self-publishing platform to allow authors and (supposed) rights holders to upload and sell e-books worldwide in English, German, and French.
The online vendor's global rollout of its Digital Text Platform arrives on the coattails of Amazon extending the reach of the Kinde DX e-reader beyond North …

Lotusphere 2010 preview
Microsoft bashing has always been a key function at IBM's annual Lotusphere conference which lands in Orlando, Florida, again next week. Funny how collaboration software will do that.
In years past, executives have swing out massive statistics of how many “seats" Lotus Notes and Domino has gained or held against Exchange and …

NASA is trying to sniff out which employee brought a baggy of cocaine into the hangar that houses Space Shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week. The space agency is preparing the shuttle for a launch to the International Space Station in March.
Spaceport officials said an employee found the bag Thursday …

Cisco has unveiled a new four-services-in-one network line card designed to move more data storage functions out of end devices and into the fabric.
Cisco's Storage Services Node 16 (SSN-16) consolidates Cisco's existing fabric-based SAN services into one card for a MDS 9000 director chassis. The 16-port line card contains four …

Open source vendor Alfresco Software is rolling its enterprise content management (ECM) system into IBM's Lotus collaboration products to serve as a stronger counterpoint to Microsoft Sharepoint and reach smaller-sized business customers.
The company is also teaming with RightScale's software-as-a-service cloud management …

Symantec intends to boost the risk-management wares it sells to the public sector by scooping up privately-held Gideon Technologies.
Symantec said on Tuesday that the acquisition will expand its slate of products that provide validated configuration of security content automation protocol (SCAP) and its vulnerability-checking …

The mysterious properties of astronaut piss are believed to be the cause of the International Space Station's extremely troublesome deployment of its $250 million urine-recycling system.
Engineers attempting to troubleshoot the buggy barrel-shaped Urine Processor Assembly aboard the ISS now suspect that a high concentration of …

The Apache Software Foundation may formally end development of the long-in-tooth 1.3 and 2.0 branches of its Apache HTTP Server to focus support on the 2.2.xx branch.
Apache is the most popular HTTP server software in use on the web, with numerous machines still running branches 1.3 and 2.0. However, developer interest for the …

A US district judge has rejected RealNetworks' argument that Hollywood studios illegally joined forces to block the sale of its DVD-duplicating software, RealDVD.
On Friday, judge Marilyn Patel in California dismissed Real's antitrust claims, saying the preliminary injunction against distributing the DVD copying software still …